One of David Einhorn's winning shorts may have just been wiped out

One of the stocks hedge fund manager David Einhorn has been
recently short is being taken private at a 78% premium.

On Monday, Keurig Green Mountain Coffee, the maker of
K-cups, said it's
being acquired by JAB
Group for $92 a share, a deal giving the company a $13.9
billion valuation.

The $92 share price is a 78% premium to Keurig Green
Mountain's closing share price of $51.70 per share on
Friday.

Einhorn, the founder Greenlight Capital, reentered his
famous short of Keurig Green Mountain in the third quarter.

"The second time has been a charm as our original thesis is
playing out. So far, our third biggest winner this year," Einhorn
wrote in his fund's third-quarter investor letter.

The letter also noted that Einhorn shorted the stock again
at $102.08.

It's unclear if Einhorn is still in the
short. Greenlight declined to
comment.

If Einhorn is still short, the bet will have still been a
winner.

Shares were trading at $89.95 on Monday morning, below the
$102.08 share price where Einhorn starting shorting. Still, the
bulk of the gains on the short side would have been wiped
out.

It could mark yet another piece of bad news for Einhorn in
what has been a challenging 12
months. Greenlight Capital's main
fund was down
20.6% through the end of November. Einhorn is on track for
his second-losing year
ever. His only previous down year
was in 2008,
when his fund lost 23%.

A
single-serve Keurig Green Mountain brewing machine is seen before
dispensing coffee in New YorkThomson
Reuters

But the short position didn't play out in his favor.

In the
third quarter of 2014, Einhorn wrote that he had
covered, calling it an "ultimately unsuccessful short."

"We closed out a number of positions including the remainder of
our short position in Keurig Green Mountain (GMCR). While it
should be tempting to write an entire book on our experience with
this ultimately unsuccessful short (our average sale was at
$47.59 and our average cover was at $67.02; we had many
opportunities to trade this position to a successful result, but
failed to do so)...,"
the letter from 2014 said.

Even when he exited, he said that he still stood by his thesis
about the company's accounting.

That letter continued: "As far as we can tell, everything we said
about the shenanigans is unrefuted and accurate. In any case,
time has passed and these misdeeds are now dated. The SEC spent
four years looking into the allegations — or, rather, four years
passed between when it opened an investigation and closed it."